MQM terms delimitation work `an act of gerrymandering’

Posted on: 11/2/2013

Describing the on-going delimitation work as `an act of gerrymandering’, Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Coordination Committee said that Sindh government under a calculated move wanted to grab all powers so as to deprive the city governments of their basic rights.
Moreover, the provincial government’s act of increasing the minimum population of a municipal committee from 30,000 to 50,000 for urban areas and for giving representation on a population of 2,000 in rural areas aimed at curtailing seats of urban areas of the province and, as such, it amounted to excess with the urbanites, the Coordination Committee remarked.
In a hard-hitting statement issued on Saturday, the Committee vowed to continue its peaceful legal and constitutional battle against the unjust delimitation work and appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, to take immediate notice of Sindh government’s act of gerrymandering as it was still getting altered boundaries of electoral constituencies from the deputy commissioners’ offices even after the expire of deadline fixed for the purpose.
The Committee hoped that the Chief Justice would take positive measures to ensure transparency in the delimitation work so as to foil the Sindh government’s act of curtailing seats of urban areas of the province which amounted to open rigging t.
Lashing out at the Sindh government for getting approved the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2013, from the provincial Assembly in haste, the Committee said that such an act on the part of the government has distinctively divided the population on ethnic basis.
“The height of Sindh government’s unjust delimitation work could be gauged from the fact that it did not even bother to display the lists of the new boundaries of constituencies for inviting objection from public,” the Committee deplored, saying that the MQM would never accept the delimitation work that had been carried out against the wishes of the constituents.
In fact, Sindh government’s act of reducing urban areas seats would, on the one hand, deprive people’s representation and, on the other hand, the problems of the citizens would be compounded further, the Committee added.
It also vehemently condemned the ruling party for getting altered the boundaries of electoral constituencies as per its liking from DCs offices in spite of the fact that the deadline for undertaking delimitation work in Karachi and whole of Sindh had already expired.